CAIRO: Egyptians voted on Saturday in a three-day referendum on constitutional changes that could allow President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to stay in office until 2030 and boost the role of the powerful military.

Mr Sisi’s supporters say the changes are necessary to give him more time to complete major development projects and economic reforms. Critics say they concentrate more powers in his hands and return Egypt to an authoritarian model.

While the changes are expected to pass, observers say the turnout will be a test of Mr Sisi’s popularity, which has been dented by austerity measures since 2016. He was re-elected last year with 97 per cent of the votes, on 41 per cent turnout.

The country’s small but vocal opposition called on supporters to vote against the changes instead of boycotting the polls like they did in the presidential election.

Former presidential candidates Hamdeen Sabahy and Khaled Ali both posted photos of themselves with ballot papers marked No.

People carrying flags and wearing T-shirts saying “do the right thing” — the slogan plastered on thousands of posters across the capital ahead of the referendum — meanwhile campaigned for a Yes vote.

A double-decker bus blasting patriotic music circled around polling stations close to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 2011 uprising that ended former president Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

“I believe that everything the president has done was for the good of the country, and I believe that we want the march to continue,” Mona Quarashi, head of a local NGO, said before she voted in downtown Cairo.

But a hairdresser in a Cairo suburb said he did not vote. “I cannot participate in a farce like this,” said Zaki Mohamed, 45.

“Does it make sense to have a referendum on articles in the constitution without studying these articles and for whose interest? We have gone many years back, back to the authority of the individual.”

If approved, the amendments would extend Mr Sisi’s current term to six years from four and allow him to run again for a third six-year term in 2024.

They would also grant the president control over appointing head judges and the public prosecutor from a pool of candidates.

They would task the military with protecting “the constitution and democracy and the fundamental makeup of the country and its civil nature”.

Sisi came to power after spearheading, as defence minister, the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi as president in 2013. He was elected as president a year later and won the second four-year term last year.

Under Sisi, Egypt has witnessed a crackdown on dissent that rights groups say is unprecedented in its recent history. Media and social media are tightly controlled.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2019